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Post by kyokuhon on Feb 4, 2005 17:45:24 GMT
Hi,
Here's a question about something I've noticed. I have two vintage fretted Chinese string instruments, a yue qin and a mei hua qin, and they have equally-spaced fretting that has eight notes to the octave. Pictures I've seen of (presumably) newer versions of these instruments have European-style "chromatic" fretting, i.e. 12 frets to the octave. The only music that I know of that uses an equal-spaced eight-note scale is one of the Javanese scales. Does anyone have any knowlecdge/opinion about this, specifically whether these instruments were concieved with an equal-spaced scale, or whether the player would just "fudge it" into a pentatonic scale? Does it represent an older conception of pitch for Chinese music? I've played a couple of Yunnan folk dances on the yue qin, but the mei hua qin is awaiting repair.
Any comments welcome.
Best to all,
K.
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Post by johnwithajinghu on Apr 21, 2006 6:05:39 GMT
hi
this is kinda old but i know why
it has to do with older notation (chegong pu) and by "modern" musical standards, the notes are kind of "fudged " into a pentatonic.
most instruments which still use this spacing are for accompaniement (like your yueqin and meihuaqin.) with frets arranged this way, you can switch between erhuang and xipi melodies easier.
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Post by kyokuhon on Aug 18, 2006 14:35:45 GMT
Hi,
Sorry, I hadn't looked at this for a while. I thought it was something of the kind, and it makes sense. I had read that older dizi also tend to have equally spaced finger holes, and I have an older Japanese shinobue that has equal spacing. The Japanese call it "hayashi" tuning and use it for outdoor festival music.
Now I just need to replace the lost frets on my meihuaqin, and I'm ready to accompany. But, and please forgive my ignorance, could you say something more about erhuang and xipi melodies?
Thanks,
K.
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Post by johnwithajinghu on Aug 19, 2006 0:57:17 GMT
hi
xipi and erhuang are the most common melody types in beijing opera
xipi is 6-3 (for huqin) and 3-6-3 for plucked instruments (meihuaqin yueqin xianzi) it is shifted up half a step (i think) from first position.
a common xipi melody is (xipi liushui) 16 5 5 55 36 51 321 216 555.......
erhuang is 5-2 for huqin and 2-5-2 for plucked instruments. it looks like its in first position (1-5) but its not quite the same
a common erhuang melody is (erhuang yuanban) 61 23 6565 . 612 532 765.........
does this help?
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Post by kyokuhon on Aug 24, 2006 19:13:50 GMT
Yes, jwjh, very clearly and succinctly put. Thanks!
K.
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Post by davidbadagnani on Sept 11, 2006 9:14:35 GMT
The Thai (and originally also Cambodian) scale is also 7 equal divisions of an octave. If the octave is 1200 cents, each interval is approximately 171.4 cents (smaller than a Western whole step). Although it sounds out of tune to Westerners it's an elegant system because, as mentioned earlier, you can play a pentatonic scale starting on any of the 7 pitches, in order to match a singer who might want the pitch to be a little higher or lower. A lot of wind instruments (oboes and flutes) around the world have equidistantly spaced holes too.
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Post by kyokuhon on Sept 11, 2006 21:26:36 GMT
Hi, all,
Yes, David is right about other equal 7-tone scales. Perhaps the most famous is one the Javanese pelog scale, which also frequently uses only 5 of the tones, and when not, as frequently in Chinese music (it seems to me) the 4th and 7th notes of the scale are used for "color", almost like "accidentals" in European music.
It is elegant, and not that hard to get used to. When I played with a gamelan, I found that by the end of a 2-hour practice, I could sing the scale pretty well; however, by the next morning I'd be morphing it back to a diatonic scale.
K.
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Post by kyokuhon on Sept 12, 2006 19:39:35 GMT
But, to follow up on my last posting, I remind myself that my basic question was this: knowing that other nearby people use a 7 equal tone scale, did Chinese musicians ever "mean it" the way the Thai and Javanese do, or were they always using it to "fudge" (as John says) other scales? In other words was there ever a time (or place, or time-and-place, or, for that matter, a time-and-place-and-style) in Chinese music that actually used a 7-tone scale? If anyone knows, I'd be interested in hearing about it!
Thanks, and keep playing.
K.
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